How did you arrive at success?
As a stage comedian I have a past which is unusual compared to my colleagues, because I have a diploma in drama. After three years of private school I worked at the Piccolo Teatro Studio with Strehler and Cubelli; in the early 90’s, I was an actor in a company. I played Gaveston in Edward II and other classic characters. I had a main role in a Monicelli film "Facciamo paradiso".  With David Riondino I directed a Cuban remake of Bicycle Thieves: "Tropical velocipedes"; then television in  "Fantastico" with Raffaella Carrà, Raoul Cremona, Pieraccioni... although comedy is something else... I like to write, you saw how I deal with subjects... I am ruthless!!!

Which of these experiences did you prefer and which would you like to repeat?
Just yesterday at the Zelig, celebrating Alex and Franz, I was talking to some better known colleagues of mine, who smile at each other in a pitiful way, if you think that they are fifty and still on the scene. I imagine myself in the theatre if my brain holds out and will be able to fight, because it is not easy to make people laugh. I do not choose an easy humour. So, if my brain will help me to be always nasty, "punk",  aggressive, intelligent in my way of putting things; if at that age I will still be like this, I’ll keep on going.

Going back to the show, why did you choose sex?
Because I like it a lot, but it is not a boast I think it is... a phobia, a pathology. I think I tend to sexual dependence more than any other male around me! The sex I deal with on stage is psychoanalytic; even tonight the female audience was by far superior in number than the male one; they come to hear us talk about them. Boys feel revenged, girls feel queens, it is only right and I hate those who give such little attention to my show dubbing it as male chauvinist, it is everything but.

Girls laugh at your jokes and attend your show in great numbers, why do you think that is?
Because they are more intelligent than men and they have a finer sense of self-criticism. My show is based, and inspired, and lives of women, of femininity, smells, breaths, tricks, tactics, behaviours; it is written by a person who loves them so much to pay them a great deal of attention.

Plans?
After "Le Iene" I have dedicated myself to other things, performed on stage, written a film and... I advertise myself, I have written the screenplay to a new tv-series that will start in October on Canale 5 and is called "Carabinieri".  I returned to the Zelig, people attend in great numbers, because television is vehicular...

Area Zelig

Dario Cassini

Piccolo Teatro

Canale5